every time i don't, i almost do
by leatherlikedean
Summary: Derek can't figure out how to ask Stiles to prom, so he asks everyone else for advice. This turns out to be an awful idea. Sterek!


"So," Derek says, setting his drink down. "I think I have a problem."

A pair of rich eyes looks up at him from poking at some unhealthy looking macaroni and cheese, and Derek looks back with anxiety pulling at his stomach.

"Fuck." Scott breathes, and panic starts to overtake him as well. "You're not doing drugs or anything, right? Derek, man, that shit messes you _up_."

Without warning, Scott's warm hands are placed on his shoulders and they're basically breathing the same air, because Scott is inches from his nose.

"We can get you some help. Who started you on this, huh? Was is Greenberg? Finstock? _Harris_?"

Derek snorts and puts a hand over Scott's pouty face to push him back into his seat. "Scott, this is not _Breaking Bad_. And I'm not doing drugs- the first and last time I tried anything of the sort Laura screamed at me until I was shaking and then she sat on me until I promised never to smoke again."

Scott doesn't doubt this, because while Laura is pretty and soft, she's terrifying if anyone or anything puts her younger brother in danger.

"Oh," Scott realizes he sounds like an idiot, sort of, and he relaxes against the table. "Then what's your issue?"

Derek opens and closes his mouth a few times, starting each sentence with a different string of words, and Scott just sits back and waits patiently for Derek's brain to wrap itself around his predicament.

"I don't know how to ask Stiles to prom." is what he spits out eventually, looking absolutely frazzled, and Scott just grins because finally, finally, Derek is doing something to make a move on his best friend. The two have been skirting around each other for years.

"Why ask me?" Scott wonders aloud.

Derek thinks Scott's a little oblivious at the best of times but him and Stiles balance each other out because Stiles is as sharp as a whip.

"You're his best friend, Scott. You out of anyone would know what he likes romantically."

Scott's face screws up at that and Derek scowls at him.

"Shut up. You know you and Isaac practically have sex in front of him _all the time_. Tuck the face away and help me, please."

"Aw, you asked nicely." Scott grins and Derek begins to seriously regret even bringing the subject of romantic pursuit up. "We've never really talked about it before. But one time Stiles was watching some video on YouTube where this guy rented out the entire top of the Empire State Building to propose to his girlfriend. Try doing something crazy."

Derek nods. "Well, how did you ask Isaac to prom?"

Scott shrugs. "We've been dating for three years, dude. I just asked when we were doing nothing in particular. Jogging, I think. Isaac wasn't even expecting me to ask- we were already going, you know?"

Derek does know, and he's jealous _as hell _because he wants a Scott-and-Isaac deal with Stiles so badly that his chest aches whenever he sees the hyperactive brunette.

So he begins planning as the rest of their ten piece group start filling in the table around them, starting with Allison and ending with Stiles. He laughs obnoxiously at something Isaac says to him, Scott yelling something else back, and Derek wonders how he'll even be able to concentrate on doing something to ask Stiles out when he can't even tell him a joke without getting breathless.

_**~.~.~**_

Derek stands back to admire his handiwork, and he nods with satisfaction. It looks as though Staples has just exploded all over the parking lot, but that's what he was going for.

The idea Scott had planted into his mind had grown and stunted and started with over again in the past few days, but it wasn't until Derek was out getting some school supplies for Laura when everything came together in his mind. It started with high lighters and escalated when he finally went down the aisle containing sticky notes.

And now, here in the parking lot during lunch, Stiles' Jeep is covered in a rainbow of sticky notes that read _PROM?_ across the windshield.

Derek is pretty damn proud of himself, and is happy enough to grin at the word and physically pat himself on the back.

But then life happens and while he's sitting in fourth hour Physics, it starts raining. Like, a lot.

He's in the middle of diagraming a catapult with Erica when the first rumble of thunder echoes through the room, and he stiffens up like a cat who had just been drenched with water.

"Oh no," Erica groans, and the two look out of the window in the nick of time to see lightning flash and the downpour begin.

"_Are you kidding me_," Derek almost yells, grabbing the attention of his teacher and most of the classroom.

"Mr. Hale, is there an issue?"

Derek flounders for a moment, before he simply points and the rest of the class follow his finger.

Stiles' Jeep is obvious because one, it's _fucking baby blue_, and two, sits above most everyone else's low riding cars in the student parking lot. Everyone but Derek, whose face is currently in his hands, watches as the rain soaks the sticky notes through and all but melts them off of Stiles' car. In only five minutes they're off and in sopping, scattered piles on the ground.

Nobody can help it and soon everyone in the class is laughing their asses off at Derek's stroke of bad luck, and his teacher just gives him a sympathetic look that he misses because he's too busy trying not to start swearing.

Erica is laughing, too, when she pats his back comfortingly and Derek sighs at their poorly drawn catapult.

_**~.~.~**_

Miraculously, Stiles doesn't find out what the sticky notes were for or what they'd said- he just thinks Isaac or Scott played a prank on him and he thinks it's rather funny.

So thanking his lucky stars that he has another chance to not totally mess up asking Stiles to prom, he goes to someone who has a little more sense than Scott but enough romanticism in him to keep Scott on his toes.

"Do something... Suave." Isaac tells him when they're at the store getting snacks for the movie night. "I think it's incredibly sexy when Scott isn't tripping over his own feet."

"Um."

Isaac glares at him without heat. "Shut up. He's not a _total _moron, you know."

Derek looks like he highly doubts this, but he doesn't say anything else- just grabs a box of microwave popcorn while Isaac piles up everyone's favorite candy.

"As I was saying," Isaac starts, throwing a bag of _Sour Patch Kids _in the cart for Allison. "Try for something actually romantic, and not gaudy like with the sticky notes stunt."

"That was Scott's idea."

"He gave you the basis." Isaac reprimands him. "You threw just as much stupid into the mix as he did."

"When you say romantic, do you mean like flower petals leading to the bedroom where I'm waiting with a dinner platter in my hands and nothing but an apron on?"

Isaac laughs as they head down the coffee aisle because Isaac needs some for the upcoming exams he has.

"Derek, you need to woo him, not seduce him. You've been watching too much porn. Just, do something cool. Wow him."

Derek thinks that this doesn't help at all, but instead of saying this to Isaac and incurring the wrath of the Lahey and his puppy dog boyfriend, he just nods and shuffles along with Isaac down to the soft drinks isle.

_**~.~.~**_

This time around, Derek hardly thinks about it at all. He sees someone catching a girl in time to keep her from hitting the ground on some terrible teen romance show, and everything's a go the next morning.

Derek has second hour AP Bio with Stiles and he walks out of the classroom with Stiles, deeply in conversation about the newest TV show the group will be watching together starting that weekend. They have a system where someone finds a new series to watch on Scott's Netflix account and they watch the entire show together until they finish it. It started with _CSI _and escalated all the way up to who the fuck knows what. Once Lydia coaxed them into watching _Gossip Girl _and even _Boyd _got into it. But then Isaac made them watch _Dexter_, and that went about as well as one thinks it would with a bunch of psychotic teenagers grinning at the sight of blood and murder.

"I think it's Allison's turn to pick a show," Stiles tells him, practically skipping down the hall with excitement. "She always picks the good ones. Like_ Arrested Development_."

"God, I hope Erica doesn't go for a while because I can't handle another _Vampire Diaries _for at least ten years." Derek laughs back, but it comes out slightly forced and nervously and somehow Stiles manages to not see this. The shorter just grins.

"You know they have another spin off of that, right? _The Originals_?"

"Fuck," Derek groans, and Stiles cackles again.

As they near the steps that lead to the front of the school, where everyone's agreeing to meet to go out for lunch, a girl Derek knows is in Stiles' art class calls out his name and waves at him. Stiles turns to wave back and all of a sudden Derek's opportunity is upon him and by God does he take it.

Without even thinking about the consequences of the whole operation going horribly, horribly wrong, Derek looks down and sticks one of his feet out in front of Stiles to trip him, and therefore, catch him smoothly.

Instead what happens is that Stiles flies forwards a good foot and Derek watches as the object of his affections goes sailing down the stairs, which are concrete, and bounces until he reaches the floor again. His arms are stretched out uselessly and all he can do is watch the scene play out completely wrong with wide eyes and an open mouth.

"Ouch." Stiles groans from his heap on the floor, and suddenly Derek's tripping down the stairs and wishing to take back the last minute greatly.

"Fuck, Stiles," he breathes, pulling the lanky teenager to his feet. "Are you okay?"

Stiles looks fine, except for the wince pulling at his mouth. One of his long hands is rubbing at the small of his back, the part of his body that got the butt of the fall, and Derek feels like the biggest jackass in the world.

"Fine." he says dismissively. "I do that all the time."

He does, and that's why Derek drops it and lets Stiles think that he tripped himself over his own feet and jiggly legs, and as they proceed to meet the other eight out in the parking lot, Derek throws his dignity away in the trashcan between the two sets of doors.

Stiles has forgotten all about his fall by the time he starts pressuring Allison into telling him what they're going to watch Friday night, the brunette just grinning and shaking her head, but Derek can't stop replaying his failure over and over again.

Isaac grins at him and slides over, waggling his eyebrows in a way Derek wishes he wouldn't.

"Hey, Romeo." he laughs. "How'd it go?"

Derek deadpans and looks at Isaac without a single trace of amusement. "I tripped Stiles in hopes that I would catch him and he would fall deeply in love with me and gladly be my date to the prom. He ended up _falling down the stairs _and almost breaking his back in half. And he doesn't even realize that I tripped him, Isaac, because he's so used to nearly _killing _himself on a daily basis that it's_ just a thing now_!"

Isaac's lips disappear between his teeth and his neck suctions into his throat and it's the face he makes when he's trying very hard not to laugh. Derek sighs.

"I hate all of you," he growls, rubbing a hand over his frowning face.

Isaac just giggles at him and without a word, goes to Stiles and lifts up the back of his shirt. Stiles doesn't even blink and Isaac whistles when he sees the large constellation of purple and red starting to bud up on Stiles' lower back.

"Good job, Hale. This here's a masterpiece."

"What." Stiles looks incredibly confused by this statement but when he turns to look at Derek for an explanation, his friend is beating his head against the stone pillars holding the roof up. It looks painful but when he tries to say something, Isaac shushes him and tells him to just continue on with babbling about _Criminal Minds_.

Derek only stops hitting his head long enough to be steered towards Boyd's car, and then he's back to doing it against Allison's head rest.

_**~.~.~**_

After that particular disaster, he goes after someone who's good at being sleek and dashing all of the time, no matter _what _the event is.

"Derek, you're an idiot." Erica tells him sweetly with a red smile and a pat on the hand, and Derek agrees.

"Duly noted. Can you help me? Please?"

Erica's response isn't so much of a surprise as the onslaught of images it brings with it, and Derek's face turns rosey when Erica tells him:

"Do something sexy."

Derek chokes on his water and ends up spitting most of it back into the plastic bottle at his mouth. Erica watches without wavering from her coy smile.

"_Sexy_?" he asks her roughly once regaining his breath. "Erica, I have the sex appeal of a rubber duck."

"Oh sweetie," Erica pats his hand again, and Derek glares down at the black nails with irritation. "It's okay that you don't own a mirror and are completely oblivious to the fact that Stiles jerks off to the thought of you many times a week. We accept you for who you are."

This furtherly makes Derek's face redden and he gold fishes his mouth at the blonde cat-like girl grinning at him.

"But I mean it when I say do something sexy."

"Like... Patrick Swayze lifting Jennifer Grey up at the end of _Dirty Dancing _sexy, or Channing Tatum in _Magic Mike _sexy?"

Erica's grin widens even more and Derek really wishes that he hadn't just said what he did out loud.

"We'll pretend you didn't just say that- _for now_," she adds with a light snarl at the look of relief on Derek's face. "And no- stripping makes things awkward if there's no sex involved in the end, and you obviously can't be trusted with catching Stiles when he falls."

Derek's lips purse but he doesn't reply to that.

"I mean something you don't have to work that hard for." Patting his hand again, Erica pulls away and hands Derek his water bottle that he uses at lacrosse practice.

"How did you-"

"Derek, I'm a woman, not a hermit. I know where the locker room is." the blonde scoffs, and Derek just takes it from her. "Also, I know what your sports duffle looks like. That's how I found your water bottle."

"And what exactly am I supposed to do with this? Drug him?"

Erica looks at him with an expression that says she thinks he's even more of an idiot than Scott is, and he begins to rethink his whole process of answering questions that aren't school-related.

"No- you're going to bust your ass at lacrosse tonight, and when you get a water break, make sure he's looking before you pour it all over yourself."

"Erica-" Derek whines, looking as though it's a worse idea than Isaac's.

"It works all the time!" she insists. "Boyd does it sometimes and-"

"_Okay_, _okay_." He holds a hand up to stop her from continuing. "Say I do this. How am I going to 'woo' Stiles into going to prom with me?"

"Because he'll see your very Greek-God like physique and fall to your feet in a puddle of body worship. Then he'll say yes to anything you ask him, even if it's giving you head right in the middle of the locker room with everyone watching."

Derek groans and pinches the bridge of his nose to push the images away.

"Fine. Just as so long as you never bring something like that up when he's around."

Erica just gives him a sassy wink and ruffles his dark hair as though he's a cute child she's talking to.

_**~.~.~**_

Finstock blows his whistle some time after the start of practice and Derek's stomach curls wildly as everyone starts heading over to where their water is being kept. Stiles is stomping besides Scott and Isaac as they walk over, and all Derek can tell from the conversation is that Stiles makes a snarky comment that causes Isaac to swipe at him with his lacrosse stick and Scott to laugh.

Erica's in the bleachers for Boyd and when he takes his helmet off and looks over at her, she grins back widely and gives him a double thumbs up. Lydia and Allison look confused by the interaction but don't say anything, instead choosing to give each other weird looks.

He takes a shaky breath before grabbing his water bottle and he grabs Stiles' attention by saying something about the play they just did, Stiles grinning back at him and agreeing that it was totally awesome.

Then he twists the lid off, and while still laughing at Stiles, he leaves the smile on his face as he tips his water out of his water bottle and onto his head. The water is ice cold and chills him right to the bone, but instead of doing anything about it, he just lets it slide over his sweaty face and shakes his hair around like a dog.

Stiles is watching him with wide eyes and labored breathing when he opens his eyes again, but before he do or say anything, Finstock is blowing his whistle again, the sharp sound poking a hole in their sex appeal bubble.

"Stilinski! Back on the field! You too, Hale- this ain't no goddamn _Victoria's Secret Runway Show_!"

Flushing and sighing with defeat, Derek puts his helmet back on and he runs out onto the field to begin practicing again. Erica gives him a grin that's both apologetic and pleasantly surprised, but Derek thinks that the whole thing was a bust and wishes to never do it again.

The problem, Derek realizes, once getting back into the locker room, is that none of the water actually entered his body, and there wasn't another cooler of water out on the field to fill up with. So Derek feels like he's going to die when the team gets back to the locker room, and Stiles' mouth is going a mile a minute.

"We totally killed it out there! We're taking those assholes from up north down Friday night, and they're not gonna know what hit them! We'll be legend- wait for it, Scott,- dary! Legendary!"

"Stiles, you shit, you started _How I Met Your Mother _again without us, didn't you?"

The lights in the locker room are beginning to tilt precariously and Derek doesn't know which way is up, down, left or right. Everything's a mass of red uniforms and hazy yellow lights.

"Fuck," he groans, and knows that the water stunt was a bad idea, because now he's fucking _dehydrated_. Thanks_, Erica._

"Derek?" He can vaguely make out the shape of Stiles' worried eyes and flattened down quiff through the stars in his eyes, and all he can do is groan again, before his eyes roll into the back of his head and he's falling to the floor like a sack of bricks.

Stiles is shouting like a maniac and it's the last thing he hears before he blacks out completely to the smell of dirt ground into the cold floor against his cheek.

_**~.~.~**_

When he comes to again, he's in a hospital bed with an IV of water hooked up to his arm and he feels mortified.

"Ung." he groans, and wonders if he can smother himself with his pillow that smells like band-aids and soup.

"Don't even try it, or I'll press the nurse alert button." someone says to his right, and Derek flips over to find Danny sitting nonchalantly in a chair next to his bed, reading a book.

"Did I really pass out in front of the entire team?"

Danny looks up and laughs at him, and Derek can't help but see the humor of the situation due to Danny's wide cocoa eyes.

"Yes, you did, and everyone but Stiles thought it was fucking hilarious when we figured out that it was because you used your water to turn him on instead of drinking it."

Derek groans again and tries to hit him, but the IV stops him from doing so and Danny sticks his tongue out at Derek when he glares at him.

"Stop laughing at the cripple."

Danny laughs even harder, and hits Derek's abdomen with his book. "You are _not _a cripple- you're just stupid."

"Thanks." Derek growls, and Danny just shrugs. "I wasn't trying to be stupid- I just want to figure out how to ask him to prom, for God's sakes."

The other boy mellows out and turns to face Derek in the way he does when someone needs to have an actual conversation with Danny. It's one of the main reasons why Derek's so fond of him.

"Well, what have you tried so far?"

"Scott suggested I do something spontaneous and crazy, so I put sticky notes on Stiles' car, and then it rained. Isaac suggested I do something cool and so I tripped Stiles in hopes that I would catch him but then he fell down the stairs and still has bruises on his back. And then Erica suggested I do something sexy so I poured my water over my head at practice and then in turn fainted because I was dehydrated."

Derek thinks this list of his failures is great and should someday turned into a book of how not to ask someone out. It would make _millions_.

Danny grins and thinks so, too, when Derek says this out loud.

"Have you tried doing something funny? Stiles loves a good laugh."

Derek knows this and shakes his head. "Funny? You mean, like, stand up comedy?"

"No- just do something to make him laugh." Danny's eyes got bright. "Serenade him."

"Excuse me?"

Danny laughs and hits Derek lightly again with his book. "Sing him a song, Derek- pull out your guitar and sing him his favorite love song."

"You do realize that Stiles' favorite love song is from a _Disney _movie, right?"

"Yes," Danny nods. "And it's not even from an old one because Stiles is a loser."

"I am not singing Stiles a _Disney song, Danny._ I have pride."

_**~.~.~**_

Derek does not have any pride. All of it was gone the first time he met Stiles in middle school and accidentally flung mashed potatoes at the back of his buzzed head. So he's standing below Stiles' bedroom window with his guitar in hand and the words to Stiles favorite _Disney _song echoing in his mind.

He throws a rock at the window and waits until the light turns on in Stiles' room before he begins to play the song on his guitar, quiet chords playing out in the dark.

"All those days, watching, from the windows, all those years, outside, looking in, all that time, never even knowing, just, how blind I've been."

Derek grimaces as the lyrics from _Tangled _fall from his tongue and as someone moves to push the curtains aside and look down through the window. Their image is blacked out by the light behind them, but it looks incredibly like Stiles and Derek tries to smile as he sings.

"Now I'm here, blinking, in the starlight, now I'm here, suddenly, I see, standing here, it's all so clear, I'm where I'm meant to be."

The window opens up and Derek thinks, _'Oh God, this is it, either he's going to grin and say yes or he's going to laugh in my face and I'll have to change states.' _

But the person hanging out of the window isn't Stiles- it's John, and he looks like he's trying very hard not to being howling with laughter as Derek strums his way into the next verse of _I See the Light_.

"That's, uh, very good, Derek. You have a lovely singing voice."

The song breaks off at once and Derek pales as he takes in the sight of the father, and not his son.

"Stiles isn't here, is he?" he guesses with a sinking feeling in gut, because now he's not only made a fool of himself in front of Stiles, but his dad, too.

John chuckles and Derek just takes it with an ironic nod of his head. "No, son, he's not- he's at Scott's house studying for their Econ final. _Maybe_."

Derek just sighs and thanks him, running a hand through his wild hair. He had been _so close, dammit. _

John's still leaning out of the window, though, and with a smile he asks Derek if he'd like to come in for something to eat or anything.

Derek shakes his head, confidence crumbling. "No thank you, sir."

John just nods and watches as Derek trudges back to his Camaro, guitar on one arm and heart on the other, and he almost feels back for the kid. But, it was also _incredibly _amusing to see Derek Hale serenading his absent son on their lawn, and sticks his head back into the room to laugh without Derek seeing or hearing.

_**~.~.~**_

Stiles comes up to him the next day at school, looking as dapper and excited as always, and Derek's heart spasms at the thought that John told Stiles about his late night concert in their yard.

"Hey," he greets Derek with a smile. "My dad told me you came over last night while I was at Scott's. Did you need anything?"

Derek looks at Stiles like an owl while his brain processes the fact that _fuck yeah, John kept his horrible and disaster of an attempt to ask Stiles to prom to himself _and suddenly he's covered head to toe in warm love for John Stilinski.

He grins back, full of relief, and shakes his head.

"Nah- just wanted to see if you were up to some pizza or something."

_**~.~.~**_

"I'm just going to guess that last night didn't go splendidly?" Danny asks Derek at lunch, and Derek just nods his head in confirmation that yes, last night was a _disaster_.

"Shit, Derek, you two are ridiculous!" Danny throws his hands up before storming off to go and get some lunch. Derek thinks this is unfair, because Jackson was the one that asked Danny to prom; of course, he did it the lugnut way and threw Danny a lacrosse ball that had Prom? written on it in black sharpie, but it was still cute and Danny accepted, so as far as Derek's concerned Danny can shut the fuck up and go make out with his boyfriend.

He realizes with a start that the last few people he's asked to help him were the ones that were asked, not doing the asking (Boyd got Erica some flowers, and Allison brought Lydia some of her favorite nail polish and migrane medicine) and so he seeks Allison out and signals her over once she gets her food.

"I need your help," he murmurs to her urgently, and she looks absolutely _delighted_.

"Oh! Do I get to help you royally fuck up asking Stiles to prom next? _Yes_!" She leans forwards, salad forgotten and eyes bright. "What tactics have you covered so far?"

"Um, crazy, suave, sexy, and funny. None of them have worked, obviously, so I'm hoping the Bank of Argent Wisdom can give me something to work with. "

Allison thinks this over as she bends the plastic handle of her fork, lips pursed and eyebrows scrunched together in a funny looking squiggly line.

"Do something sweet," she tells him finally, and opens up her salad dressing.

"Such as?"

Allison plucks a tomato into her mouth and chews around it to answer him. "Take him to Mary," she suggests. "And ask him under the moonlight."

Mary is what they call Stiles' favorite little river running through Beacon Hills, and it's so clear that it's often mistaken for ice or a mirror. It's also nicknamed after Stiles' favorite urban legend of a raging bitch of a queen that pops out through bathroom mirrors and claws your throat out.

Derek nods and thanks her, before everyone begins piling up at the table. Erica squishes in next to him and she knows at once that it had been Allison's turn to help Derek out with his problematic situation.

"If you fuck up Allison's idea, you just need to give up, Der."

"I know. Thanks again for reminding me."

_**~.~.~**_

On the way to TV show starting night, Derek takes a different road with Stiles in the seat next to him, and smiles when Stiles' eyebrows put together in confusion.

"Um, Derek?"

"Hm?"

"Jackson's is the other way," he forks a thumb over his shoulder towards the road leading right.

"I know, we're just making a little stop first."

Stiles eyes him skeptically, but doesn't say anything else, just taps his fingers along to the radio and looking around to try and figure out where they're going.

He gets it just as Derek pulls up to the perfect place to stop, and Stiles looks like Christmas came early and someone had brought him Chris Pine and stuck the actor under the tree with a bow on his forehead.

"You brought me to Mary?"

"Yeah, thought it might be nice for some peace before the chaos erupts at Jackson's." Derek smiles back, but Stiles is already out of the car and tripping his way over the bridge. He gets up on the railing and sits right in the middle of the bridge, and looks out over the river with a warm smile on his face.

When Derek manages to finally get his damn seatbelt off, he joins Stiles on the small wooden arch, looking out over the water that's so clear one can see right to the bottom and watch the fish swim by.

"Thanks." Stiles tells him after a while of just sitting and staring. "I _love _it here."

Derek laughs quietly. "I know. That's why I brought you."

Stiles looks over and give him a look that's filled with such liquid affection that Derek's throat constricts and it takes him a moment to breathe properly.

He's about to say something to Stiles, maybe bring up prom right away or ease himself into it, but instead he finds Stiles leaning closer, _inching _if anything, in a way that makes Derek's skin prickle with anticipation. He blinks, gaze flickering in between Stiles' lips and his amber eyes, and before he knows it, he's leaning against the railing and trying to get as close to Stiles as he can.

Their lips just faintly brush against each other, and Derek reaches up to cup Stiles head and bring him closer, but then Stiles slips away with a light shout and Derek's eyes snap open with his lips still straining towards another who's no longer there.

Stiles shouts again before falling backwards and Derek doesn't have time to reach out and stop him before Stiles is falling backwards into the river. He lands with a large splash and Derek watches with wide eyes as Stiles flails around to pull himself out of the water.

He scurries down off of the bridge and over to the side, eyes wide and frantic.

"Stiles, are you okay?"

Stiles is now just sitting in the middle of the river, soaking wet and shaking due to the early spring nippiness blowing through the trees, hair flattened against his forehead and drooping into his eyes.

"Oh, yeah." he says, giving Derek a sarcastic thumbs up, water dripping from his plaid sleeve. "I'm just fabulous."

Sighing, Derek holds out a hand and Stiles stands up and allows Derek to help him back onto shore, huddling closer to Derek to block out the wind cooling him off even more.

"Do you want to swing back by your house and change before we meet up with the others?"

Stiles just nods and takes his plaid shirt off to wring it out, looking cold and miserable. Derek doesn't blame him.

He pulls his phone out and calls Allison to let them know him and Stiles will be a few minutes later than expected.

"Oh," Allison sounds pleased. "And why is that?"

"Stiles fell into the river." Derek says flatly, and pulls his phone away from his ear when the girl on the other line begins to laugh deeply.

"Oh, shit, you're _joking_, right?" Allison cackles into the phone, and then begins laughing all over again. Derek can hear Erica telling everyone he's officially the worst asker-outer in the history of such a thing, and Derek just lets them get it over with.

"I'm taking Stiles home to change." is what he says eventually before hanging up, Allison and basically everyone else laughing in the background still.

Stiles is shaking in the front seat of his car when he gets off of the phone and Derek turns it on, music filtering out of the speakers lightly and heat blasting out to warm Stiles up.

"Thanks," Stiles tells him, and that's the only word he says the whole way back to his house because his teeth are chattering together so much he can't even talk. Derek feels like dweeb, once again, and decides that he's done with trying to ask Stiles out because it obviously isn't working. Like, _at all_.

_**~.~.~**_

When they finally get to the Stilinksi's, Stiles barrels inside and upstairs at once to change out of his wet clothes and into dry ones. John is sitting on the couch, looking over a report and watching _Psych_, and only looks up in time to watch the ball of plaid and brown hair that is his son wizz by without so much as a '_Hello_.'

Derek comes in moments later, keys in hand and a sad look on his face, and when John looks at him with raised eyebrows, the teenager sighs.

"I took him to Mary and he fell in."

"Ah." John nods, and watches with sympathy as Derek scrubs a hand over his face.

Even though John doesn't exactly stay in the loop with Stiles and his friends, it's no secret that Derek's been trying to ask Stiles out, at least. And Derek's a good kid, so John is sorry that he hasn't succeeded.

He pats the seat next to him and waits for Derek to take it to turn to him.

"Derek, I'm going to tell you something very important that no father should ever have to."

Derek looks back with worry, and John smiles. "Stiles really, _really _likes you, son."

The other looks taken aback by this and he looks at John as though he's lost his mind.

"I mean it, Derek. He likes you a lot. And it's obvious that you like him, and you're just having a hard time trying to tell him that."

"I just-" Derek fishes around for words, but when he finds none, he just looks back at John and nods. "I keep messing everything up. It's so _frustrating_."

"Well, I'm going to give you part B of that advice." John puts his hands on Derek's shoulders, looks him nice and good in the eyes, and tells him, "Just _ask _Stiles."

Derek doesn't quite get what he means. "What do you mean, just ask him?"

"Derek," John spells it out nice and slowly because that's what's got to be done. "Just ask Stiles out, or whatever it is that you're doing. Go right up to him, look at him, and ask him whatever you've been trying to for the past month. It'll get the job done a lot easier."

It takes another moment, but finally, Derek gets it, and the grin that splits his face open is absolutely radiant.

"Oh," he says. "Oh. God, you're a _genius_, John."

And suddenly the sheriff has a manly but cuddly armful of Derek Hale, hugging him out of relief and thanks.

He grins down at the fatherless boy and hugs him back. "No problem, kid."

_**~.~.~**_

"You know, I'm still upset." Lydia tells the table at lunch the next Monday.

"About what?" Isaac asks.

"Derek never asked for _my _help," she sniffs. "After Allison, I thought he would come to me and ask since I obviously know what I'm doing, but he just didn't. Did he ask you, Boyd?"

Boyd shakes his head. "No. I think he just finally gave up."

"I'm sorry," Stiles pipes up from Scott's side. He's incredibly confused, mostly because Derek's the only member of the group currently not sitting at lunch. "But what do you mean, _ask you for help_?"

Lydia thinks Stiles is absolutely _precious _for not noticing what's been happening at all, and her face melts like microwaved butter. "Stiles, honey, you're a moron."

Stiles looks affronted by this and goes to argue his case, but then the door to the lunch room opens and Stiles looks up to see Derek coming through the doorway, backpack over his shoulder and a single red rose in hand.

He meets Stiles' eye all the way from across the room, and smiling, begins to walk over to the table where every single last one of them are staring at Derek with wide, curious eyes.

When he gets there, he takes the empty seat next to Stiles and turns it to face the owl-faced teen.

"Stiles," Derek starts, soft and amusedly. "I've come to the conclusion that I'm an idiot. Will you go to prom with me?"

It takes a moment for Stiles' spinning head to work out those two very different sentences, but once he does, he doesn't even take a moment to think about what Derek had said. He needs some clarification.

"You're an- what? Derek, what does that even _mean_?"

"Have you really not noticed that I've been trying to ask you to prom for nearly a month now?" Derek asks, looking equally surprised by the fact that Stiles still didn't even know.

"Um. No?"

Derek raises an eyebrow. "The sticky notes on your car? The trip down the stairs? Pouring water all over my head? Serenading you? Taking you to Mary?"

"You never _serenaded _me-" Stiles blurts out, but his intelligence is beginning to kick in and his mouth is twitching out into a huge ass smile that everyone at the table is beginning to acquire. "So, you're asking me to prom?"

"Yes," Derek nods, looking utterly relieved. "Your dad finally told me to just fucking _ask _you already the real way and I'm hoping this works or else I'm just done."

Stiles takes the rose from him with delicate fingers and takes a moment to smell it, admire it, and everyone watches him with held breath, Derek most of all.

But then Stiles rockets forwards in his chair and smashes his mouth against Derek's in a kiss, and the momentum from Stiles flying forwards is enough to send them toppling backwards onto the group, Stiles' hands cupping the back of Derek's head to make sure doesn't smash it against the ground.

They spend a few moments simply kissing each other, a good portion of the lunch room staring at them and their friends whooping loudly and high fiving at the final success of Derek's habit of being a failure at life.

Stiles eventually pulls away to smile goofily down at Derek, and neither care much that they're currently on the ground, knees hooked together over the seat of Derek's chair.

"_Yeah_," Stiles breathes finally, fingers swiping across Derek's cheek bones lightly. "Yeah, I'll _totally _go to prom with you."

_**~.~.~**_

The prom is basically_ Dungeons and Dragons _themed, with castle-bricking all over the walls and a large paper-mache dragon in the center of the gym, but Derek doesn't particularly care because he spends almost the entire night laughing with and staring at and kissing Stiles. Also, the band takes his request seriously and plays _I See The Light, _and Derek explains what happened the night Stiles came home to find that Derek had been there earlier and split.

Stiles throws his head back and laughs deeply, the other eight laughing along with him, and Derek thinks that he did pretty damn good for almost killing Stiles. Three or four times.


End file.
